Draft Climate Change Agreement forwarded to Paris

The draft text of the new, universal climate change agreement and its accompanying decisions will be dispatched to Paris, where a final agreement will be reached in December 2015.

This follows five days of dedicated work in Bonn, Germany.

The draft text of the agreement enjoys full ownership by the governments of the world and represents a balanced text that will constitute the starting point for the final round of negotiations.

Negotiations will resume in Paris when governments meet at the Paris Climate Change Summit from 30 November to 11 December 2015.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Christiana Figueres said that the draft text includes additional options that reflect the concerns of all countries.

“We now have a Party-owned text that is balanced and complete. The challenge for governments is to bring it down to a much more concise and coherent form for adoption in Paris,” she said.

French Climate Change Ambassador Laurence Tubiana said: “We have a manageable text for further work in Paris. While much work remains, the text is a good basis for negotiations and negotiations need to start from the first day of the conference.”

Both Ms. Figueres and Ms. Tubiana agreed that the political process between now and the beginning of the Paris Summit will be central to the success of the meeting.

A Pre-COP Ministerial meeting will take place in the French capital in early November to further address the high-level political issues relating to the draft agreement.

The G20 Heads of State will meet in Turkey in mid-November, followed by the Heads of State meeting of the Commonwealth in Malta just before the Paris Summit opens.

The Fifth Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA-V) is also being convened by the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe on the theme: “Africa, climate change and sustainable development: what is at stake at Paris and beyond?”